Why Bodhum?
by RisingWinter
Summary: Hope reflects on the events that led to him sitting at a work desk with an old guitar in his hands. One-shot. Possible spoilers for Yaschas Massif 10AF.


**Disclaimer**: I do not Final Fantasy XIII or any of the content within its now-trilogy.

"You can play the guitar?" Alyssa prodded him, staring at the damaged instrument in his hand.

Having let herself in as always, Hope internally cringed. He hadn't touched the thing in years and he wanted to harshly inform her it was a rather sensitive topic. Voice grating, just barely, he said "I _did_."

"Play it! Play it!"

"No." Normally he would find a more polite way to brush her off, but there were limits to his patience. Instead, he sort-of-politely guided her to the door and shut it again with a lock. How she had gotten in - he always kept the door locked - was beyond him, but he decided he was installing a new system starting tomorrow.

He turned back to the dusty guitar and carefully wiped the film off with his damp handkerchief. Tentatively placing his fingers on taut strings, he tried to remember the chords he had memorized so thoroughly before. Instead his mind brought up memories long since buried.

He had been learning along with his mother and she picked it up with such enthusiasm he couldn't find the courage to tell her he wasn't interested. His progress was slow, to say the least, and he didn't jump in with vigor like his mother did. Within a few weeks, she was experimenting with her own tunes and plunking out original melodies. Hope was staying caught up, but barely.

Something changed a couple weeks later when Hope's mother was jamming (there really was no other word to describe it) something that really… grabbed him. Renewing his efforts, Hope had started paying closer attention and wrote down the theme his mother had become so obsessed with. He recalled that was about a year later that he had been in the process of slowing it down and editing some notes when she announced they would be visiting Bodhum.

"Why _Bodhum_?" he had asked, holding the guitar close. "Why _tomorrow_?"

His mother had bounced with the idea, hustling around the kitchen in the way that she always did when high-strung. "Your father will be able to come! His vacation week is being pushed up, and Bodhum is showing off their fireworks. Perfect timing!"

Hope wasn't sure what to think when just a few hours later his father came and announced that, due to an emergency, he would be unavailable for the date they were supposed to leave.

First, Hope felt genuine disappointment. Sadness that they couldn't enjoy the trip together. That his mom wouldn't be as happy as if he had come. But it quickly turned to bitterness. Anger that his father would be so quick to blow off his mother's excitement in the name of work. Like it was more important than his own family.

Hope shook his head. He had recovered from such emotional distress and far worse. He replaced his fingers and got working the old tune out. A few simple notes -D, E, F#... D?- accompanied by an awkward chord or two, and he smiled semi-sweetly at his progress. He really hadn't gotten very far, and now his scientific pursuits were taking up all of his time and attention. The old guitar would probably spend many days more locked up in the musty closet that it had been transported to upon its recovery. It wasn't his original, having been rescued from a nameless ruined structure in old Eden, but it was a guitar. The workings were the same, though he had lost his own a long time ago, and it just wouldn't do chasing after old ghosts when there were others in the present that required his attention.

Lightning and Snow could never come back. And then Serah and her mysterious new companion disappeared through the gate without a sign some years ago, just before Sazh, Dajh, and Snow all then up and vanished. And then Bartholomew, the last of his family, had just passed away a few weeks ago from whatever the doctors had said it was.

Hope couldn't care less about the cause. The last rope he had held onto was now gone.

But now there was Alyssa, of whom he had some rather mixed feelings. On a professional level, she got work done and was amazingly intelligent, efficient, and resourceful, and he highly respected her for that. But on a personal and familiar level, she just didn't have a healthy sense of personal space and he had to _breath_ sometimes. But perhaps she was, Etro forbid, the one that now needed his attention.

"Director!"

_Speak of the devil_. He let out an exhausted sigh at the beeping intercom lying quite innocently on the desk. "Yes, Alyssa?"

"There's activity around the time gate near the Archaeopolis!"

And there was that stupid spark of light within him that threatened to fill him with - dare he say it - hope. Like a cockroach, it never seemed to let the power of constant defeat crush it into oblivion.

Reluctantly setting the dusty guitar aside, he pushed himself out of his chair, snatching the intercom, and started for the door, trying to keep himself ready for disappointment. Lifting his intercom, he, quite calmly, replied to a spastic Alyssa "I'm coming."

Fifteen minutes later and he was charging his boomerang until the familiar vibrations hummed and tried to break through his protective gloves. Flashes of battles ranging from open fields to a swirling nexus ran through his mind and he could've sworn that, for just a second, he could feel the inner tumble of magic channeling through his veins.

Upon spotting the whirling vortex, however, the feeling vanished. Though Hope still couldn't help feeling rather exultant as he brought Airwing high once more and flung it toward the beast working to claw its way out from the gap in reality, trying to take with it-

Pink hair.

He readily snatched the boomerang shooting right back toward him and leaped nimbly off from his vantage point on the cliff. Just as he straightened, he explained the electromagnetic charge he'd used, stepping towards the target party. In a way, he was trying to, figuratively, ground himself as he took in the white and gloves and far too much pink-

Not Lightning. "It's been a while, Serah," he announced, more to himself than anyone else. She called his name in surprise and he let himself smile just a little.

Alyssa had said a few words from their - the companion Noel was present as well - visit seven years ago, having been quite taken with them. He surprised them with his knowledge on the event, as he then learned that they'd been traveling together for the entirety of a few of their days' time.

And for the first time in years, Hope let a genuine smile cross his face.

* * *

Author's note: The smallest changes affect the greatest things. Thanks to Serah and Noel's meddling, there are a couple details that differ here from the game, as you may find. The reality being, this is a _slightly_ alternate timeline that Serah and Noel stumble into after the first time they "enter" Yaschas Massif, 10AF.


End file.
